Lightning flickers against the walls of the Concert Hall as tumescent cellos and double basses punctuate a tremulous string section, heralding the oncoming storm.

Sensual and ominous, it is the perfect start to Wagner’s Die Walküre, in which forbidden love and law collide.

Performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, it is the second instalment in Simone Young’s multi-year Ring Cycle which began with Das Rheingold last November.

Simone Young conducts Die Walküre with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Photo © Jay Patel

Since then, Young has made history as both the first Australian and woman to conduct the Ring at Bayreuth.

There, she was hidden from view by an acoustic hood, purpose-built by Wagner so that his Ring could be watched without any distractions from the pit.

Here, Young takes centre stage, drawing out the composer’s leitmotifs from the podium and weaving them like a master storyteller.

And like children engrossed by a bedtime story, we eagerly go along for the ride.

Young leads us down a path clearly signposted by musical themes such as ‘Alberich’s Curse’, ‘Fate’, ‘Siegfried’ and the ‘Resolution of Love’, all of which resonate as clearly as, say, Gargamel’s theme from The Smurfs...